Life on the highway affords the sort of intimate appraisal of American fast food that one only gets when making self-destructive documentaries. At least one meal a day comes from the ovens and microwaves tucked into the back of gas stations and truck stops. The restaurants are nearly consistent across the country, with only a few clues about local flavor. Dunkin Donuts fades over the Mississippi; Jack-in-the-Box appears below the Mason Dixon; but really the only thing unusual about eating fast food from state to state is the scrutiny one can give the entire industry.

Taco Bell has a plan all the fast food companies can agree on. The faux-Mexican chain has launched a campaign to inaugurate a fourth meal. And not in a brunch or linner way, not a meal in place of, but a meal in addition to. That's one way to keep growing your operation. Increase demand by 33% and start counting your increased revenue in advance. The Fourth Meal, which Taco Bell has not managed to name any more daringly than that, is intended to go in between supper and breakfast. Just in time, as my friend pointed out, to sleep on it. Taco Bell has even created a java-based web site to pimp the fourth meal. Choose your gender and play a little game in which you hang out late at night chasing the opposite sex and the less elusive drunk snack.

The country's momentary fling with eating healthy and concern about obesity has come to a quick and painless end. The bellwether of the movement has even shifted tactics. On Subway menus across the country the emphasis is off the seven sandwiches with seven grams of fat or less and on to new toasted sandwiches smothered in cheese and absent of vegetables beyond tomato sauce. On the teevee, Jared the awkward dieter has been replaced by the adorably tubby Jon Lovitz who encourages us to "Eat Fresh." Fat is now okay just so long as it is fresh. As publicly traded companies, even the fast food giants continue to search for new markets. Subway must feel that the fast-food-eaters-who-want-something-healthy demographic is tapped out.

Finally, I had a mysterious Arby's jones from day one of my trip, which I scratched with some curly fries and a surprisingly tasty chicken sandwich. Arby's, however, remains a mystery to me. A fast-food roast beef place? From coast to coast? Really?

***

Russia straddles 11 time zones which must make live television something of a futile undertaking. America has four time zones and that's disorienting enough. Crossing into a new zone is like winning the surreal lottery. Nothing changes physically, of course (much like the make-believe fun of crossing a state border) but all of a sudden, an hour is given or taken away. Traveling west, the receiving can be great fun. Fall back to standard time on demand. A drive that was going to end at ten p.m. suddenly ends at nine. But it also adds another layer of foundation to the geography separating me from home. It is a tangible marker that I am moving farther away, in time as well as space. Travel in an 80 mile per hour auto is such an intangible concept, without any real sense of the huge distance being covered but this other man made contrivance, time zones, makes things more concrete.

(As a brief side note, I am tempted to move to the Western edge of a time zone, to nudge sunset as late into the day as possible.)

Pacific Time is the greatest mystery of all for someone born and bred on the East Coast. As my host in California said, living in PT feels a bit like you're catching up with the rest of the country. My friends and family back home are already well into their day by the time I wake up. They're out of work before I am and they're at home in bed, too asleep to call, before I am. I am behind. When I am home and call my friends in other time zones I am impervious to these sorts of faux pas. (I don't make a lot of cross-continental phone calls in the morning.) Out here I live behind the clock. I need to get back east where I can feel justified that I'm on the cutting edge because I get to noon before anyone else in the country.

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